Tuesday’s News & Notes
| Team | Yesterday | Today | Pitching Probables |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rochester | OFF DAY | @ Memphis, 7:30pm | Krook (3-2, 4.42) vs. Cijntje (2-5, 4.61) |
What’s there to be said that hasn’t already been said? Nothing. Because nothing has been said.
Neither team has published anything resembling a playoff preview, nor have they announced the open…er, starting pitchers. In fact, Memphis’s last published news story is dated August 9. While that’s not as bad as the ace staff writer for Wilmington (Claude Chad G’Peetee, July 21), this is the AAA affiliate one of the marquee franchises.
But I digress. Because I have to. Or this will devolve into a Grandpa Simpson screed.
Editor: Too late.
As noted in the comments, after winning the first half, the RedBirds sleptwalk through the second half to a losing record (36-39) and finished eight games worse than the Red Wings (83-67 vs. 90-58). But in a (way too) short series, anything can happen. Roster moves: LHP Jared Simpson optioned from Washington.
UPDATE:
While the RedBirds official website remains the same, as noted in the comments, the RedBirds finally issued a press release this morning at approximately 9:20am CT via OurSports Central and Audacy.
I really don’t understand what the Nats are doing with Luis Perales. He wasn’t good in AAA this season (3.64 ERA but a 4.63 FIP, 5.14 BB/9 and an unremarkable 9.06 K/9). He finally managed to put together three good games in a row (in relief, mind you), then weirdly got promoted, when there were better performing players available on the 40 man in AAA (Eddie Yean). Perales was also presumably butting up against an usage limit, hence the earlier switch to relief, as he has thrown 33.2 and 2.1 IP in his past two seasons, and he was up to 96.1 IP at the time of his promotion (almost 3 times as many innings as he’d thrown in the previous two combined!!). I thought it was most likely he’d get shut down, not promoted. But he did.
Now, he’s been up for a month now, and he’s been awful. Terrible command (13 BB in 11 IP). When he does get the ball over the plate, it’s entirely too hittable (5 HR allowed or 4.09 HR/9!!), all good for a 11.45 ERA. He’s throwing the ball fast (reaching 99 frequently), which is about the nicest thing you can say about his short debut so far.
What’s the deal here? This feels different to how they’ve handled most other arms coming back from injury, with careful pitch limits, while, again, Perales is up to 107 IP, after throwing 2 last year. And guys getting promoted typically have had to earn their promotions (look at how long it took Morales to get a shot. Even House and Crews had to do their time and show meaningful improvements before getting sent back to DC. Perales had a 4.97 ERA in August before getting promoted.). And now, after clearly being overmatched in MLB and yet to have even one half-decent outing, they just keep him around, whereas relievers who melt down are routinely demoted by now.
It just feels out of step with how other prospects are being handled, and I feel like I’m missing something.
You know what’s really amazing about Perales? All the prospect watchers basically across the board continue to glaze him. MLB has him 12th, Fangraphs 13th, BA has him all the way up to #8 in the system! These are September rankings, with the benefit of this entire season’s worth of data. Maybe not his ridiculously awful MLB stint, but still seeing the fact that he walks guys at prodigious rates and “only” has a K/inning in AAA.
I think Perales represents an embarrassment for this GM, who made his acquisition a “show me” prospect for prospect trade and it has badly, badly backfired.
Clearly he’s not suited for relief pitching, and they spent most of the season grooming him to be a reliever b/c .. well, that’s what the team needed. So, My guess is he gets stretched back out as a starter, maybe they have him pull back on the velocity to find either movement or control or both, and hopefully he finds some success in the first half of 2027 in AAA.
While on the topic of trades, what is everyone’s opinion on the Ford-Ferrer trade in retrospect?
With over 100 plate appearances now under his belt, Ford’s bat looks so, so much worse than advertised. I’m worried.
you mean the Ford/Lyon for Ferrer trade, right?
Continuing on the Ole Miss baseball theme
I just caught this transfer portal shift
Corey Koskies son Caleb took his lefty swinging talent in OF from IU Hoosiers to Ole Miss
The guy for Memphis tonight might have pitched at Ole Miss with Riley Maddox
Yeah, a month or so ago, I said here that I would make the Perales/Bennett trade again. I may have to take the L on that one.
Still have questions about Bennett (essentially he has to be perfect to be successful, his K rate is ordinary, but he is at least competitive on the MLB level, and maybe he will be even better than that), but Perales just looks so far away from being an MLB pitcher. Feel like Perales had brief moderate success as a reliever in Rochester, and so, the Nats rushed him up to DC to, I guess, show that the Bennett trade wasn’t an abject disaster, but he just looks lost at the MLB level.
Understand his analytics are great, but he just doesn’t seem to have a clue how to pitch. Compare him to Yovany Cruz, who also has had big struggles at the MLB level, but at least with Cruz, there are times when you can see that he has both the stuff and some idea how to get hitters out. Cruz is just really inconsistent (Cruz also seems particularly awful when pitching back to back days). Perales just throw way too many non-competitive pitches, and while his fastball seems great on the radar gun, MLB hitters don’t see to have any problem teeing off on it.
I just have a really hard time believing Toboni is using Perales as a vanity project. As Kevin pointed out below, the bullpen has become a bit of a YOLO showcase, evidenced by Tolman and Simpson’s appearances. But Perales, for better or worse, is in an entirely different prospect class. You don’t jerk him around, especially while building back stamina from a long term injury, while throwing junk at the wall and hoping something sticks. But then nothing about what they’re doing suggests a coherent long term strategy here with regards to Perales. Maybe, this means management are WAY WAY down on him after a really bad season, and they view him in the same category as Tolman and Simpson. This would then make sense of their actions, but, man, while I’m not so high on Perales, I’m still not ready to write him off as a reliever just yet. He is, after all, still only 23.
Like Young Norm Carlton for Wayne Krenchiki years and years ago
and now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
my guess is Simpson leads the parade of relievers tonight, followed by Lyon and Susana if necessary. given the way the season evolved, not the worst case scenario by any means.
too bad for Cole Henry, I remember watching him duel DL Hall 4+ years ago in a AA matchup of top pitching prospects. both touching 100. Andrew Lee stole the show from them in that game but he was 28 at the time.
I’m going to be charitable about Perales and say that by the end of this year, the bullpen was as close to an open tryout as you could get. Just go see what happens.
The absence of content about AAA has me thinking that maybe they should spin AAA off into a “League 1” kind of thing. Imagine a world where cities like Charlotte and Memphis had teams they cared about, and could make multi-year deals with guys like Drew Millas, who is one of the best AAAA guys I’ve ever seen. You could make arrangements with MLB clubs to make it a “finishing school” for a few guys, and other arrangements where “we’ll play him and here’s the arrangement if you need him for 2 weeks due to injury” or whatever. And honestly, they’d probably need some subsidies from MLB, but you can make that work through the dev/depth contracts.
But then your lovely 15,000 seat downtown ballpark has the freedom to really run themselves like a team, have a real playoff race rather than “I guess we have to declare a winner but we don’t care at all” crap they’re doing now, and the ability to really acquire and develop talent for the purpose of winning games, not just of needing something to do.
Oh, I meant Riley Adams, not Drew Millas. But the larger point is that, rather than expanding to a larger number of MLB teams, most of whom will struggle to maintain a $100M payroll, let alone $300M, build a league where $30M payrolls are the norm, 5000 fans every night is fine, and the big games turn out 15k. I think that demand is there — any city with maybe 1-2 major-league franchises in any sport, and a couple higher-end minor league teams (Charlotte, Nashville, Columbus, Hartford, Sacramento) could build a business about a 2nd-tier baseball team. MLS is essentially that — they’ve stayed in business for 30 years now but just at a lower level than the big boys.
2026 Nats bullpen
A chorus line but Bob Fosse not in charge of it !
lol
Nationals planning to hire Brian Rodgers away from the Astros as their new international scouting director, according to sources (SN NYT)
Also of note, and what i completely expected to happen, that Nats lon time medical services director has been let go.
I’ve went on numerous rants the past couple of years of how i felt that there was something inherently wrong in the Nats approach to pitching medical and athletic training and injury prevention.
It made utterly no sense how many pitchers blew out their arms literally one or two years after being drafted. The list was embaressingly sad….
With these areas being addressed, i have no doubt that the Nats will be a prospect producing powerhouse.
Very good catch Fred MD
Granted Rogers last name is not ALOU as in Jesus or Felipe .
Since we are in the equal night EQuINOX as the curtain comes down on the rebuild season and we mutter over small matters in this rebuild .
Is there Ian amateur draft if we see 1994 de ja viex all over again ?
In the manner that NCAA starting pitching talent is being groomed by the major programs .
The young Turks should fish out a few arms who can
Ascend fast like Anderson did for Mariners
Rodgers from Astros might improve the Vegas odds of finding Latin talent who can
Take the bump and last 6-7 IP in a starting role Veering the player development program of openers , 2-5 arms , bridge bulk relievers …..
next spring do we actually see a return to traditional pitching formats ? Guys like Cornelio and Hertle taking the bump inning one then stretch out to six or seven ??
Lyon came on at the end .
Romero truly earned the ( we don’t talk abbot Fight Club / Bob Boone ) national
Way award .
Maddox to me is the guy to watch healthy going into next spring . Granted all eyes willl be the tall trees coming off injuries .
Snarkes , Luke . It’s about snarkles
Bennett is not Norm Carlton ( for Wayne Krenchiki ) or
Mark Lamgston deal 1989
Big Unit 51 who might have a:statue out in Seattle instead of the new Ebbetts Field in Montreal in a different time line .
The Memphis Redbirds issued a press release and the listed starting pitchers are:
– Matt Krook (gag) for the Red Wings
– Jurrangelo Cijntje for the Redbirds (Cinjinte is a switch pitcher… really)
CInjinte hasn’t been great this season 3-4 5.04 ERA 1.36 WHIP; he was a first round pick for the Mariners in 2024, and he was then traded to the Cardinals before this season.
Game two is:
– Isaac Lyon for ROCH
– Mason Molina for Memphis
The link: https://www.audacy.com/929espn/sports/st-louis-cardinals/memphis-redbirds-2677914969
Thanks. The site’s been updated, but in my defense, that press release came out a little more than two hours ago. And I probably should have trusted my gut and listed last Wednesday’s starters because that’s exactly who’s pitching tonight.
I’m really glad they’re finally getting around to revamping their international operations. It seems to have been an oversight to date (which is somewhat understandable given the breadth of work needed 11 months ago). But it’s been a while since the Astros were good developmentally. Their IFA stars, like Altuve, Valdez, Javier, Alvarez, etc. pre date Rodgers by a long time. I won’t judge him on that alone, but will try to read up more on him.
Looking forward to watching tonight. Would be great if some of our posters could post here during the game tonight with some observations.
By the way, per the milb.tv listing, it looks like the 1st half champ gets the home field – that’s why ROC is going to MEM. (This makes it easier for MLB/MiLB as the location is known well in advance).